The closing bell came up out of the valley at the last stroke of the afternoon, and for the first time since the siege began, Idrin heard the Hold answer it.
He was standing in the gate’s inner ward with the Watch drawn up along the wall-walk above him and the Chamber’s few lamps burning in the arch. The sun had gone behind the western ridge. The sky over the river was the colour of pewter, and the air had the bitter clean sharpness that came before the marsh’s first frost. He had his left hand inside his coat. He had been told by Sella to keep it there, and he had found that he could not keep it anywhere else.
The bell came from the camp under the cliff. It was the Order’s bell, the small silver note that had rung at the top of every hour for a fortnight, but it was not the top of the hour. It was the close of the day, and it was rung in a different pattern, one stroke and a long pause and a stroke that did not finish, and then, after the pause, a second bell answered it from the Hold.
